Kataang Week II: Quintessence
by DuHSPaZZiNGFeL
Summary: A series of prompts in honor of the wonderful togetherness of Katara and Aang. Included prompts: Panda Lily, Blush, Strengths/Weaknesses, Tradition, Comfort
1. Panda Lily

**AN: When I heard that they were doing another Kataang Week, I couldn't resist! Sorry it's a bit late, but I'll catch up with the other prompts!  
NOTE: This specific prompt is like a peek into my upcoming multi-chapter story. I won't give anything away!**

**Panda Lily**

He had an idea as he sat in the corner of his earthy abode.

The Avatar sat on a creaking wooden chair that unpleasantly screeched on the floor every time he made even the slightest of movements. Off on an errand for the world again, people would say, but there was absolutely no avoiding the job he was born to fulfill.

But as he sat calmly in the candle light, he heard the silent groan of the full grown bison sitting plopped out on the ground outside, his oldest friend, Appa. He tried to ignore the creature's vibrating snore as his hand fidgeted on the trinket that was sitting on the dusty wooden desk before him.

A sneeze or two would interrupt him occasionally as the dust entered his sensitive nose and he'd stop to rub the sleep out of his eyes every so often. The night only grew older but the object was becoming all the more complex and intricate.

"This is taking longer than I expected," he whispered to himself, "but I think it's worth the trouble."

Another round of concentrated earthbending consumed a good amount of his time when Aang decided to finally give himself a little break.

In all honesty, he had not the slightest clue as to what in the name that was good he was doing. Frustrated and incredibly exhausted, he silently blasted an air current to drift him down an extra floor out of one of the cut-out windows of the Earth Kingdom and glide his way toward the flying bison.

The grass crinkled under his light footsteps and suddenly an unfriendly gale of wind hit his back and sent a shiver up his spine, like a clump of ice had appeared out of nowhere and made its way to most unlikely place possible this time of year.

"Hey buddy," Aang said as he patted Appa's enormous gray muzzle. The beast grumbled his contentment.

"You're happy, aren't you boy?" The Avatar sighed. "I don't know what I'm doing this time. Do you have any ideas for me? "

Appa snorted.

"I know she's on the other side of the world right now!" His hand slipped off his nose and he collapsed onto the dew covered grass beneath him. "I need something. I need something that's different and completely out there, you know boy?"

His life-long friend nuzzled his head onto the Avatar's shoulder.

"Okay, okay, here's a moonpeach," he said as he pulled a fruit out of his pocket and shoved it up the bison's drooling maw. "You're not helping Appa."

Another snort, and then one of the bison's legs lay next to a beautiful flower.

This did not go unnoticed by the young man sitting near the spot. He slowly glanced over and his silvery eyes twinkled with excitement. "A Panda Lily," he mumbled, "I wonder what one of those are doing her so far from a volcano rim?"

"_I can't believe you're dragging me all the way up here for a stupid flower.__"_

Aang grinned. It was all too perfect.

-

He packed all his things onto the back of Appa as his flying lemur joined him on the makeshift saddle he had recently created to finally replace the useless boat he used before.

Aang knew he was finally ready to return to the South Pole, not just because he had finished his duties in the Earth Kingdom, even just for a short while, but because he was finally finished with his own little project as well.

Taking off into dawn's gentle rays of reds and oranges, the carefully carved form of a glistening Panda Lily pendant glowed as his placed the necklace into one of his hidden pockets, patiently waiting for the day it was given to ask her hand in marriage.


	2. Blush

**Blush**

If there was one thing that was surprising in this most unnaturally breathtaking sunset, it was that fact that he made her blush. One look at the waterbender and you could instantly tell that the blood rushing up to color her cheeks rose-red was not of the doing of the heat, but of the stillness of the perfect moment, the integrity of it all. Yet, in the fading painted colors of the sunlight, the two that stood so entranced in one another had not one trace of a frown.

The war was over. Besides that fact, nothing else seemed to matter. Their friends were safe and sound; the world was finally at a long deserved peace at last, and the mid autumn breeze did nothing to bother them.

Turning away from the balcony overlooking the grandeur of the Earth Kingdom city of Ba Sing Se, the Avatar and Katara of the Southern Water Tribe walked side-by-side back into the tea shop, only to be greeted by hysterically laughing acquaintances.

"You have no idea how priceless that was!" Toph, the world's most renowned earthbender, hailing from the quaint town of Gao Ling was clutching her stomach in what seemed like possessed amusement. "You guys didn't even notice!"

Walking in, Avatar Aang was in the short confused. "What did we miss, exactly?" he asked tugging on his dim yellow collar as Katara began to sit beside their Kyoshi Warrior friend, Suki.

A giggle escaped the warrior's lips and a short burst of a cackle from Sokka's throat. Then all of a sudden things abruptly quieted, then exploded with laughter once again.

Aang and Katara, in the center of the unwanted attention, were the only ones who didn't laugh. What could they be finding so funny, anyway? Katara looked at the amused form of the former-now-Firelord-Zuko, and was stunned to find that he too was caught up in the mirth. And even more surprisingly, the exceptionally gloomy Mai was cracking way more than some trivial smile she'd cast occasionally here and there.

Katara raised an eyebrow. "What?" she said to herself.

Of all the things that could be happening right now and all the things that the friends could be doing together, it was her and Aang that were left out of it, completely unaware of what on earth was going on. The hallways and especially the main room were filled with seemingly undying hilarity, but only two people remained completely out of it.

It was when Momo flew to Sokka's shoulder and spontaneously began to chatter in his animal tongue that the warrior ceased shaking in amusement in response to the situation that he began to realize that the flying lemur was beginning to scramble all over his artwork and spread smudges across the deformed figures that he had attempted to scribble of his companions, and of course his attempt at his beloved "fan-girl" firebending.

"Momo! What did I tell you about destroying art?" he whined, trying to swat away the creature from causing too much damage, "Aang! Aang! Get this thing off my painting! Ugh, Momo! Hawky won't be happy when he comes back!"

Frustrated, Sokka pinned his ink coated paintbrush accidentally onto one of the animal's enormous ears, which was easily shaken away and flew ten feet into Mai's face, leaving a hilarious black blotch smeared onto the tip of her nose, which in turn left her toppling onto the Firelord who was left sprawled on the dust covered floor, cups of hot jasmine tea soaring toward the ceiling and landing upside down on Toph who simultaneously yelled in surprise and unintentionally slapped Iroh in the belly, and finally made him ram into the back of the waterbender's and the Kyoshi Warrior's chairs and jumping a few inches off their seats.

In a desperate attempt to escape another one of Sokka's hands, the lemur came crashing into his master and sent him landing right under the humungous feet of his flying bison, Appa.

At the end of the haphazard domino effect, there was a silence that stayed for only about a couple seconds before the whole entire room was bursting out with joy once again. There were exclamations of "It hit her in the face!" and "Did you feel that?" all over the pavilion.

Laughing happily himself and brushing his clothes off from his own fall, the Avatar stood up and turned around to pat his bison on the nose one again before joining his group of friends full time.

But something stopped him. Sitting there, pasted hastily onto Appa's giant muzzle was a flyer-sized piece of parchment with a sloppy drawing of two figures kissing, one of which had a deformed arrow on his head…

He ripped it off and stormed to the earthbender who was covered from head to toe in tea.

"This has your name written all over it Toph!" The paper flicked across her face and the sound altered her ears.

"I suppose you're referring to what's _on _the paper?"

"TOPH!"

"Hey, Sokka helped!"

If he was impressed with even getting Katara to blush earlier, there was nothing compared to the intense color of her cheeks now as they flushed such a deep crimson that it was even hard to believe her skin could handle the pigment.

Stupid friends.


	3. Strengths and Weaknesses

**Strengths and Weaknesses**

_What is love? None can fully explain a being such a this, but pray to find its full potential and undying power to entrance, a being so immortal, dark, wonderful, and shining. None can understand._

-

Some say that the greatest fear of mankind is to fail. In some ways that is completely true, but of course not all things can be answered in its entirety. Failing, in essence is not just _to _fail, but to fail others. It is no wonder that anyone could fear a feat such as this, but it is who we are, how the weak human mind conducts things.

But when there is a fear, there is also a weakness.

What do people say is mankind's greatest weakness? To love.

There is nothing more powerful than the power to love, nothing more magnificent, nothing more gentle and fragile, yet love is such a dominant force that any adversary would adore discovering an enemy's greatest weakness, and control them to their bidding.

That is where the faults come in.

But what do people say is mankind's greatest strength? To love.

-

She had seen him grow is body and in mind. The Avatar was no longer the little kind she found in the iceberg anymore, he was more than any man could even dream to reach. He was brave; he was determined, full of hope and courage, and most of all he loved.

Katara remembered exactly what she thought when she spotted Aang soaring away from the submarine all those months ago, when she thought that _this _was the time he would face the Firelord, that _this _would be his final stand against the Fire Nation and that maybe, just maybe, the war would end sooner than she had hoped for.

But the thing is, that was months ago.

She had told him. No, she had blatantly _lied _to him. Outside that stupid play, on that stupid moonlit balcony, she lied. She hid the truth. She stormed away, leaving him behind.

One kiss, just to try it, Katara felt the hesitant feel on her mouth, but shied away from it all. To what? For _what_? To keep herself as strong as she makes herself out to be?

"What am I doing?" the waterbender mumbled to herself after the play's terrible ending of Firelord Ozai killing and defeating both Aang and Zuko. "Oh, right. I'm afraid _that _will happen." An involuntary shiver crept down her spine when she thought of the Fire Nation's imaginative version of the end of the war depicted in the play.

Her memory wavered when she thought of the time when Aang had gotten struck down with a blast of winding lightning to his back. He'd almost died, and in her head she admitted that she might've almost died that day too.

She was alone as she sat cross-legged on the ocean's shore, dark waves washing her feet, her arms pulling her knees to her chest.

"This is stupid, right?" she mumbled again. "Aang will make it, right? We'll win this war; it's what we've been working so hard for," she sighed, "Right?"

As much as the waterbender tried to convince herself that everything will turn out right in the end, it was hard for her to grasp. This was the real reason she had shied away from him at the touch of his lips on hers. This is why she pretended not to love him, or to acknowledge him. She was afraid to lose him, and in growing closer to him, she was afraid to hurt further if he…didn't make it out alive.

The Avatar was Katara's weakness.

"I hope I know what I'm doing."

-

A burst of blinding orange light penetrated the air. Ozai was winning this battle, and there was absolutely nothing Aang could do but fight for his life. If he was going to die, he was taking this tyrant down with him.

He wasn't afraid. No, there was nothing to fear but fear itself.

Darkness began to slowly creep into his vision, clouding his sight, but nonetheless he fought with every ounce of his remaining strength.

_C'mon, c'mon!_, he yelled on the top of his mind's lungs. _You have to win this! For Sokka, for Zuko! Don't forget Toph, and even Suki! Do this for…_

Aang's eyes widened for a split second.

…_Katara!_

It was then that the purifying blue light had taken over the dim of evil. It filled the sky, pushing what seemed like all else aside in its way and made the sky a shimmering array of silvery azure. He had won, and had his whole world to thank afterward: his friends, his _family_, but most of all…

"Katara! Look, I told you he'd come back alive!"

It was the sound of Zuko's deep, vibrating tone that filled his ears as he had awoken from his short sleep aboard the airship. With a small groan he lifted himself up, only to be hoisted out off his balance in a bone-crushing hug.

"You did it!" he voice felt warm to him, like a long lost song in the back of his thoughts, "You saved the world, just like I knew you would."

The Avatar's chin lifted to meet Katara's glistening blue eyes boring into his own silver ones. At that moment, she was surprised to hear, from his own lips, that she was his strength.

-

_Love is weakness, but is also strength. If it is pure and endearing it becomes a part of you. It becomes who you are, what you live for. If love is preserved correctly, it transforms into a soul's mightiest source of power._


	4. Tradition

**AN: I'm a little disappointed that I haven't gotten any feedback for these, but I'm still participating nonetheless.  
NOTE: A slight reference to The Secret, for those of you who read that story. For the sake of this story, we'll just say that Kya had a little sister but she was vacationing at Aunt Suki's or something.**

**Tradition**

It was hard to let go of the past. Tales, dances, foods, basically any tradition you bring with you gets passed down from generation to generation. But if you're the last of your kind, things might be a little different.

Sure, they always compromised when it came to their own culture, and Katara was more than happy to learn a little more about the Air Nomads. When it came to their own nuptials they followed both the traditions of the Water Tribes and Air Nomads. It wasn't hard to compensate for all the times people would ask them about these little things, these important, trivial things.

The one horrifying thing about tradition: children always ask about them.

-

A sunny morning, bright, wide open skies expressed the morning. How cliché.

It seemed that the only thing Avatar Aang was going to do on this fine morning was conduct chores, and not just any type of chores, Avatar duties. Fun. It wasn't that he minded doing them at all, it was the fact that the people always had problems. Mostly these days they were small ones that anyone could conduct on their own. Sometimes it was maddening.

He sighed as he, what seemed like the hundredth time, waterbended snow out of a citizen's stable yet again that day in seconds.

It was when a light tap on his shoulder interrupted his musings that he was finally halted from lifting another finger that day. Katara was behind him, a gentle smile grazing her features.

Aang raised an eyebrow, clearly thinking that his wife was up to something…sinister.

"Katara?"

She laughed under her breath as if she knew something, covering her mouth slightly as it quivered in amusement of her hidden thoughts. She shook her head, trying to get herself to concentrate with a huge grin on her face, before opening her cerulean eyes and boring her stare into his questioning gray ones.

"Oh nothing Aang," she laughed, "Kya just is just _curious _again. She's seven years old, and you know what that means in the Water Tribe."

The Avatar almost caught himself twitching. "What about Amaru? Can't I," he sighed, "I don't know, take her instead? Why can't you do it?"

"Amaru is three, Aang."

He opened his mouth as if to say something else as a catchy retort, but was only interrupted by the waterbender yet again. "Kuruk is a year younger, and he's asleep."

Aang opened his mouth again, but grudgingly failed when he heard that Katara had said their youngest little child, Nami, was only barely born as a two month old toddler.

"You better get going, almighty Avatar, before Kya comes calling for you," Katara chuckled under her breath again, "That would be a crowd pleaser." She raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips, "What are you waiting for? Get going already!"

-

He sighed as he waterbended down the door of their home and closed it back up again. There, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the living room on a circular woven carpet was their oldest daughter, Kya. Her chin turned up to face her father expectantly, thrilling excitement glittering in her eyes. Her hands folded in her lap and she started to fidget.

Aang walked over to Kya and carefully picked a spot next to her and knelt down by her side.

She smiled, "I knew you'd come! Mom said you would!"

Whenever one of his precious children was happy, it was hard for the Avatar not to be also. Kya's squeaky, joyful voice filled his ears and in one short instant he was ginning in reply.

"I heard a story today, from Great Gran Gran." He chuckled when he heard her say that. Leave it to Katara's grandmother to spur the ripe imagination of a seven year old kid. Part of him was almost interested in what she'd say next, but another part was a little nervous. Children are curious beings, and some questions they ask are, let's just say, a little hard to answer.

Aang nodded gently and she continued, "She said that when you first went to the Northern Water Tribe to look for a teacher, mom was trying to learn too, and you found Great Gramp." It was then that he realized that he had never heard Gran Gran tell this tale before, but she went on nonetheless, "And then mom found out that they have arranged marriages there and she didn't like that one bit. Well, she wanted someone to teach her but she was a girl! But Great Gramp taught her. Then he came here and married Great Gran Gran, and after the war you married mom."

She was fidgeting again. Noticing that his daughter looked hesitant, he decided to urge her on gently. "What is it, Kya?"

"Well," she replied, over exaggerating the 'L' at the end of the word, "Why do you have kids?"

Great, it was one of these questions. "Uh, you see Kya…"

"Why do most married people have kids, too? And Uncle Sokka? And why does Fire Lord Zuko have a kid too?"

He was about to attempt a reply, but she cut him off. She must have gotten that from her mother, he mused in his mind.

"How come Great Gran Gran and Great Gramp don't have any kids? You and mommy have four, right? Where do we come from anyway? I asked Great Gan Gran and she said something about being in love or something, but I want to hear it from you, daddy." She took a deep breath, "Where do we come from?"

His silver eyes widened. Seven. That was the traditional age in the Water Tribe when they're supposed to know these things, and of course it was the father who traditionally told them. But as an Air Nomad, his culture was that when he reached ten years of age, his masters, or the lead monks would call him down to the chamber and then tell him. Aang didn't think that it would ever come down to this.

Just then, Katara walked in through the icy arch, curious to see how the conversation was going. Kya asked the question again, thinking that possibly he did not hear her, but Aang was already scrambling up to his feet.

He glanced at Katara and started to pace back behind her through the door. "Um, I've got some things to attend to, heh." The waterbender raised her eyebrows at him.

"Well then," He said while slowly backing away and shoving out his arms in front for emphasis, "I'll let you deal with _that _tradition, Katara."

If this was one of their famous traditional compromises, he was definitely adding this particular one to the top of the list.

**AN: **_**Nami **_**means **_**wave **_**in Japanese and **_**Kuruk**_**, of course named after Avatar Kuruk, means **_**bear **_**in Pawnee (For those of you that do not know, that is one of the Native American tribes).**_** Kya **_**is self explanatory and **_**Amaru**_** is just a cool sounding name in general.**


	5. Comfort

**AN: What if Katara wasn't pulled back by Zuko when Aang made his outburst about not killing Firelord Ozai?  
**

**Comfort**

"_We're trying to help."_

"_Then when you figure out a way for me to beat the Firelord without taking his life, I love to hear it!"_

"_Aang, don't walk away from this."_

She watched him storm past the scene in an attempt to solve things on her own. A hand went on her shoulder: Zuko's. He tried to pull her back, saying that Aang needed to be alone, but she just shrugged it off and walked past him. The eyes of her brother, Suki, and the banished prince bored into her back, and the questioning expression of Toph's staring blankly into the ground. But she didn't care. Her eyes were only set to the retreating figure of her best friend.

Katara ran after him, her arms and shoulders working hard and burning as she saw him make a turn up creaking wooden stairs. She blinked back tears as a couple particles of dust entered her vision.

"Aang!" she called as she emerged to an open balcony. When she reached him he was already set, cross-legged next to an untouched tray of food and four lit candles with white wax melting off their sides. He didn't respond, nor did he bother to turn around and face her. He was meditating, she guessed, trying to calm himself for the impending battle ahead of him. Part of her didn't want to try talking to him for fear of disturbing his thoughts, but Katara knew that deep down, he needed this.

"Aang," she whispered, gently prodding his shoulder. "You can't just avoid you're destiny, you know that."

After a moment of silence, she thought he was completely ignoring her. The waterbender almost gave up, silently turning around with her head bowed. But she thought too soon.

"I'm not," she heard him murmur; "I'm just facing it my way."

By the time her front wholly twisted to face him, she found that his back stayed toward her direction; he hadn't moved at all.

The light of the fire reflected off the oak of the floors, walls, and the dark, tawny tones of the fruits that lay on the untouched food tray before him. Silence seeped through to the nighttime air, as if a humming hush surrounded them, haunting them like an unwanted phantasm.

"I can't…_kill _someone, Katara. It isn't me. It isn't what I was taught. Even if everyone expects me to do this, I want to find another way, _any _other way. I don't care what it is, as long as there are two survivors at the end of the battle." He sighed, "But if I can't find another way to win this I'll have to force myself to do something I can't bring myself to do."

Katara still stood there, motionless behind him, staring at him at the back. "But you have to save the world. We've been working to this point since the day we started to the North Pole!"

The Avatar's voice started to raise, his back still to her. "He's still a human being!" His arms finally flexed and he put them down on the ground and forced his body to twist and face her. "Even if the world is better off without him, you can't wipe out _anyone_! What Avatar Roku told me about his past, he wanted me to understand that everyone should be treated like they should be given a chance."

"Right. But…"

"I can't do that if I'm not giving Ozai one."

For the first time, Katara began to think of the position Aang was in. For the first time, she realized how selfless he was being, even if he partly still wanted to follow his teachings. She realized that in his heart, he stayed true to himself, and when she really thought about the situation it all made sense.

"You don't have to take his life, Aang." He turned around, surprised.

She comprehend that taking another person's life into consideration, no matter how horrible they are, was the most unselfish thing anyone could do.

She touched his shoulder and knelt near him. "I know you can do this _and _be true to yourself. I think I know now by what you told me that you're right, and I hope you find a way."

If she was hoping to change his mind, it happened the other way around. As for comforting him? That happened the other way around too.


End file.
